


where the heart is

by v3ilfire



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5589358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair wants to help his fellow Warden find the family the Circle tore her away from when she was young. This is, perhaps, more difficult than he'd first thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the heart is

“What about the woman by the stairs? The red dress.”  
Alistair pried his eyes off the door to the - well, he could hardly call a broken-down shack guarded by Tevinter soldiers a _clinic -_ and instead scoured the mob of panicked elves for the woman Leliana had pointed out. She had the right, sun-bronzed olive skin, but her hair was too light and there was a rigidness to the way she gestured with her hands. It bore no resemblance to the soft, languid movements he’d come to know.  
“No, I don’t think so.”  
“No, not that one, Alistair - _other_ red dress.”  
“Too young, I think.”  
“Elves don’t age as quickly or as visibly as we do,” Morrigan added from her perch on the stair railing behind them, and not without her usual venom. Alistair was shocked she was cooperating in the first place, but then again, he’d seen Nevira work greater diplomatic miracles than just winning over their resident grouchy apostate. Or - well, to his knowledge, that one was still up for debate. 

“What about over there?” Leliana nodded towards a man with the same striking cheekbones as their companion. Alistair squinted towards him, watching his eyes dart nervously about. Sure, there was a _slight_ resemblance, but he pictured her parents as quiet and steady as she, with their careful hands and steady gazes. She had to get that sort of radiating, peaceful aura from _somewhere_ , didn’t she?

Alistair leaned back onto the step behind him with a defeated sigh.  
“I don’t know. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”  
“That could very well be because you appear to be living in a very informed fantasy. We know nothing of her past outside her time in the tower - and neither does she. This is a fool’s errand.”   
“Don’t listen to her, Alistair - I think this is very sweet. We will ask around and see if anybody knows anything.” Morrigan rolled her eyes - Alistair couldn’t see it, but he _knew_ by that scoff that she was - and he was about to retort when a pebble landed just in front of them. He turned his head and there she was, their fearless leader, beckoning them towards her.  
“There’s Nev. Let’s go.”                 

By the end of the day, Morrigan and Leliana gave up looking. To their credit, it was difficult to do anything other than focus on what looked to be a kingdom-sanctioned slave trade, a possessed orphanage, and the generally depressing aura of the alienage as it was. And while Nevira was oblivious to the way Alistair examined her for every minute movement, he committed each motion to memory and compared it desperately with each and every single new elf they met. From all the time they’d spent together, Alistar had already burned so much into his mind’s eye - from the deep brown of her hair to her long eyelashes and the ridge on her nose, her delicate wrists and somehow _pristine_ fingernails, the way her eyes reflected sunset skies or firelight. But now, those things weren’t enough. Now there was the way she placed a on Shiani’s shoulder when she was trying to reassure her, the way she gripped her staff at the sight of coughing elves and dilapidated buildings, or even the reverent way her eyes lingered on the giant tree. He saw these things, hints of them, everywhere, but his theories were constantly refuted by age or features.

He still had nothing when they finished dealing with Caladrius.

It took all of Leliana’s powers of distraction to keep Nev’s attention from how _upset_ this made him. She had accompanied him to see Goldanna, had talked him through how _awful_ it all was. And now they had a chance to give her back a piece of her past, even a scrap of a childhood memory to hold close, but they failed. There wasn’t enough time, they didn’t put in enough effort, they didn’t _look_ hard enough. They failed. 

He was so consumed in his misery that, when Morrigan nudged him with her elbow, he nearly jumped out of his own skin.  
“What? Feel like gloating?”  
“I simply wanted to inform you that while _you_ were busy pouting, Nevira has gone with Leliana to look at the Vhenadahl, and there is an old woman who _might_ know something right over where.”  
“What – the venn –”  
“The _vhenadahl_ , you swine, the _tree_. Now go, lest I change my mind about helping you.” 

Alistair lit up. If Morrigan wasn’t, well, _Morrigan_ , he’d probably hug her. There was no time to waste, however, not when success was so close at hand.

“Ah - excuse me, miss, can I ask you a question?” The older elf looked Alistair up and down, not hiding even a bit of her suspicion. Every line on her face betrayed her distrust, but Alistair would not be deterred.   
“Perhaps,” she croaked out.  
“I’m looking for someone. _Someones_ , possibly - anyone with the family name Surana. Do they still live here?” The woman took her time in answering. Had this human not just helped save the alienage, she wouldn’t even _think_ about answering.  
“Never heard of anyone with that name, boy,” she muttered, after a while. The disappointment in his face startled her more than his initial approach.  
“Nobody that had a child taken by Templars fifteen, sixteen years ago?”  
“Children here get taken for reasons more foolish than _magic_. Many parents lost their babes that year, and every year since.” Alistair’s eyes moved from the woman’s face to his boots, and he sighed. “I am sorry,” she added. “I cannot help you.”  
“It’s alright. I’m sorry as well,” he said, “I… I never knew.” She watched him turn and leave, a little of the edge gone from her eyes. Somehow, she couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the boy. 

Once they returned to the Arl’s estate, Alistair made a beeline for his room, determined not to come out until he could finish… _processing_. He’d failed his one personal mission for the day and, not to mention, felt utterly _helpless_ when it came to the situation in the alienage - was it all quite so bad with his father on the throne, too? He was utterly overwhelmed, finding no comfort even in the luxury of a bed. A mattress did not stop his skin from crawling and his mind from spinning.

There were three concise knocks on his door, and he knew _exactly_ who they belonged to. “Come in,” he called over his shoulder, and the door swung gently open.

“You didn’t come downstairs for dinner,” and judging by the smell of beef and broth that suddenly filled his chambers, she was there to reconcile that. “Is it your shoulder again?”  
“Yes,” he lied. He would have made up something else if he knew that Nev’s next move would be to set down the tray and come sit on the edge of his bed. Her hands rubbed at his shoulder, and he felt the cooling waves of her healing magic start to pulse from her fingertips. Alistair couldn’t bring himself to face her. 

Nev had a fairly good gut feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling her, but she knew him well enough to know how to coax the problem out without forcing it. They had all night to figure it out, and so she kept massaging his shoulder (even though she _knew_ it wasn’t bothering him - there were no knots, no cracking, no stiffness in the joint) and took to humming a slow tune. Alistair was almost asleep when she finally stopped, only kept awake by the sudden pang in his stomach.

“I wish there was more we could have done for those poor people,” Nev sighed. “Perhaps after the Blight.” She had been rather prepared to spend the next several minutes easing him into a conversation, and was thus surprised when Alistair turned himself around and wrapped an arm around her waist, laying his head lamely next to her thigh. “Hello to you too,” she said, and took to running her hand through his hair. She took great honor in knowing she was the only person who was allowed to mess with his self-proclaimed magnum opus: the perfect upward flick.

A flick of the wrist, and the door locked shut. It was a normal precaution, but he couldn’t help but feel suddenly even _more_ miserable in her presence. Trapped in his own gut-churning inadequacy. Either that, or his stomach was violently protesting the lack of food after a long day. Or both. “You should eat something,” she said, and he tallied that with further proof that the woman was some sort of mind reader.

As Alistair readjusted himself to sit upright on the edge of the bed, Nev picked up the stew bowl and heated it in her hands. “What, no jokes about the perks of having a mage for a companion? I recall you calling me, ‘the best Satinalia gift in all the lands: a cuddling, portable stove.’ Still true, I hope?” He couldn’t help but smile.  
“Still true.” 

Once the bowl was safely in his hands, she rose and moved to the mirror over the washbasin. A precise tug at the ribbon in her hair sent cascades of dark hair down over her shoulders and to the middle of her back - a fact she did not seem to enjoy.  
“Maker, if I ever get a hold of whoever decided that elf-blooded people’s hair will grow a league longer each day, I swear.”  
“You’ll what? Politely scold them?”  
“Precisely that,” Nev agreed, glad for the hint of humor creeping back into his tone. As he ate, she took to the bag she’d hung on the doorknob, and pulled from it her brush. “I’ve half a mind to take a razor to my head.”  
“You keep aiming the way you do, and you’ll just singe all your hair off with a fireball anyway.”  
“You’re right. I could very well burn my hair off with my aim… or yours.”  
“You wouldn’t!”  
“You’re right. I wouldn’t.” 

The food _was_ making him feel better, but nothing prepared his stomach for the way she turned to smile at him. He hadn’t seen that smile since they came to the alienage that morning - not on her, not on anyone else. It brought a flush to his face that made her laugh, and if _that_ didn’t make it worse, well.

In the time it took him to finish his dinner, she brushed and braided her hair for bed, changed into her sleep clothes, and crawled into bed next to him.   
“My, my, she grows ever bolder! Whatever will the maids say?”  
“They have… a fair plethora of speculations about us. I’ll just leave it at that.”  
Speculations that could make Zevran blush, he assumed. There was nothing quite so passionate that night, however, only their usual arrangement of limbs and a series of small puffs of magic to put the candles out. If only the Chantry taught how _convenient_ magic was when one couldn’t be bothered to leave the bed after a long day. 

Nev’s breathing had long since steadied, but Alistair found that he couldn’t seem to sleep. He kept thinking about the woman in the red dress, and the man with the nervous eyes.  
  
“I tried to look for your parents,” he whispered hastily into the darkness, hoping she was far too lost to sleep to hear him.  
“What?” she answered, and propped herself up on one elbow. No such luck, apparently.  
“Today, in the alienage,” he whispered back, unable to read her glowing eyes in the darkness. “I kept searching. I even asked an old lady, but… “  
“Why?”  
“I – you’ve done so much for me, and Goldanna is _terrible_ but she’s still family, you know? I guess I just… I wanted you to have a bit of home. Or something.” Nev did not answer long enough to make him nervous. “I know it’s stupid, but –”  
“Alistair.” 

Nevira sat up, and in her palm grew a light just bright enough to illuminate her sleepy eyes. Much to his surprise, underneath them was a half-smile and a warmth he had not expected.  
“Thank  you.”  
“But I didn’t –”  
“That’s alright. You tried, and that… that means a lot to me. But the alienage is not my home - I don’t even know for sure if I was _actually_ born there. I don’t consider the tower home, either, but… this? This is home.”  
“What? Us?”  
“Yes. Us, all our friends. Nugget. Everything we’ve been through together. I didn’t know what _life_ was before the Wardens. So… please. Don’t worry about such things. I have all I need. The past is irrelevant.” 

For a lack of words to better describe whatever the buzzing was in his head, Alistair sat up to kiss her. The light in her palm went out just before their smiles met in the darkness.

“Now, go to sleep.”  
“Yes, Captain.”


End file.
